Solitaire POV: Day 80

  Current Wealth: 279 gold 31 silver 16 copper

  I was exposed, out in the open, vulnerable and unguarded. They were all looking at me, staring, plotting. I knew it. I could smell it, bastards, all of them. Rats and killers, little rotting pieces of shit with brains and teeth and knives and hatred. I wanted to kill all of them, I wanted to build some nice, big fucking bomb, set it off and finally get myself some peace. Watch the skin boil off them, the bones smash into dust, the air finally fall still and quiet Just me, on my own, nothing to worry about, nobody to watch my back around. An endless party where the only one invited is the only person I knew wouldn’t try to do me.

  Except I wasn’t the only person I knew that about, there was also Shango and Beam. I sighed. One day I’d be able to go through with killing everybody. One day.

  Seen without the veil of neurosis I’d been wrapped in since setting foot outside the Velaharo Manor, the outside wasn’t all that scary. Within reason. It helped of course that I had two notable figures with me, one towering, plate-clad Helena, of course, but more importantly Corvan. The magus had been rather grumpy to get dragged out and forced to bodyguard me while I moved towards the arena, but I considered that more of a bonus than anything.

  “You’re being paranoid.” He whined, nasally. “They won’t send another attack so quickly, they’ll still be reeling from the first failure.”

  “I’m being cautious.” I replied, deciding to keep it to myself, for now, that attempting to convince a person they were paranoid is just how a double-agent would go about orchestrating their death. It seemed awfully convenient to me that Corvan had been absent during the attack. Literally awfully, it was fucking awful how convenient it was, practically left me gibbering with worry and expecting the bastard to jump out from behind every corner trying to fireball me.

  The timing, though, just didn’t line up. Corvan hadn’t been out of our sight in any real capacity since we beat the shit out of and recruited him like a Pokemon, he’d have had no chance to organise any sort of betrayal after that. If he was working with the Dead Edge and that Lord Byror, he’d have been working with them already when he came for us himself. And if that had been the case, he’d have come with help. Corvan and the crossbowman alone, I thought, would’ve had better than even odds of killing all of us the other day. Not a chance they’d failed to cooperate given how much of a reputation for killing ability we’d built.

  “You alright, sir?” Helena asked, snapping me out of my thoughts and whipping my head around to her with the question.

  “Of course.” I replied. “Why?”

  Behind her metal visor, I couldn’t see any trace of facial expression, and the reverberations of words through steel distorted her tone a shade. Even so, I could sense the sardonicism in her answer.

  “Because you had that look on again. The one you had when you set off that trap in Rinchester, and we all had to pretend not to notice your cock pressing against your clothes.”

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  Silly me, I must’ve forgotten to keep my face guarded. That’d teach me for not being properly diligent when thinking about Them.

  Our walk was long, which served well to prolong my itching anticipation of violence, and raise Corvan’s whining to a new height as the magus began to complain about aching knees and a poor back. I ignored both as best I could, just concentrating on the act of putting one foot ahead of the other, right up until I came to the arena.

  It was a big thing, as one might have expected. But only relative to the other structures of this world. Ten of it might’ve fit inside an Olympic stadium back at home, and though the architecture was made of far more stone and metal than was normal, it didn’t reach all that high into the air. Ten stories, maybe as few as eight.

  “Huge.” Helena noted, as if we might’ve missed the fact. Corvan seemed less impressed, but not by as much as I would’ve hoped.

  “Magic.” He grunted, nodding towards it. “Built with magic, I’d bet, probably tempered the supports with it.”

  It was a funny thing to be so sure of. Back home, we wouldn’t have blinked twice at a building that size, even one three or four times it. But back home we’d had innovations like…

  Rebar. Just bits of steel, run through stone. Instant multiplier of its strength and supportive power, and about as simple as anything. That’d be worth mentioning later, but later.

  “Come on.” I grunted. “I’d rather leave the window for murdering us as small as can be managed, eh?”

  Corvan and Helena didn’t say a word, which was annoying. I was suddenly nervous, suddenly feeling exposed and open all over again, as if a great big eye was perched atop the stadium and glaring down at me. I could’ve used something to distract me from the sensation of my neurons eating each other.

  We got inside fast, recognised before we were even at the door and ushered past it by some poor sod who looked worried I’d gut him for taking too long. Made me wonder about the sort of people who typically signed up for this event, until I remembered it was people who’d gained a lot of experience hitting each other with bits of sharp metal.

  Inside the place was musky, dank. It smelled of sweat not yet broken and blood still waiting to be spilled, almost exciting. We made our way through to the main desk, where a tiny bespectacled man sat. I’d not have made anything of his glasses, usually, but they were a rare thing in this world. Not many could afford them in Redacle, even with magic to help the shaping of glass into focal lenses. Which meant he was probably high in the event’s pecking order.

  “Names of applicants.” He said, lazily. “Heights, weights, chosen events.”

  I told him, signing up myself, Beam, Argar, Helena and Shango to fight in the melees. There was another event, too, some sort of magic-duelling type deal, but Corvan vehemently refused to be added into it.

  “Only a fool lets the world see what he can do in a fight.” He spat. “If you’d known what I was capable of, that weapon of yours would’ve killed me in my sleep.”

  He had a point there, I had to admit, information was a weapon like no other. Reluctantly, I opted not to record his name. We continued the business until a new detail came up, one that gave me pause.

  “You are aware, sir, that you bear sole responsibility over the injuries gained during this contest, and must have them healed out of your own pocket?”

  I had not been, and it fucking changed things. If I wanted to attack someone under the protection of a noble, what would I do? Well, that depended very much on the circumstances. If one of those circumstances was an event where crippling them was as easy as signing up to swing a sword at them.

  It was live weapons, real weapons, and automatic loss by forfeiture. If ever there was a time…

  But we needed the experience, we needed the power. I had to pick between vulnerability now and vulnerability later.

  No, I decided, I didn’t. If I didn’t sign up now, Shango or someone else would anyway. Reluctantly, I steeled myself.

  “We understand.” I replied.